Bauhaus Prairie Art Gallery

Celebrating the modernity of creative contemporary and traditional art through online art competition

December 2018 -Abstract


Abstraction: Theoretical, Conceptual & Intellectual

Abstract Art is making a major come back. In America it had it’s peak after World War II but perhaps with the renewed interest in Mid Century Modern the movement is alive again and growing. More and more abstraction can be seen in major show across all media and genres. The art for this month’s exhibition is a great cross section of artists working in abstraction both nationally and internationally. The difference in the movement this time is that today’s contemporary artist have adapted the concepts of abstract art based on the elements and principles of design and color but added conceptual meaning and more substance.

Best of Show winner, Q. Wang, presents his interpretation of “New York” abstractly in a very minimal but high effective way. A strong vertical black shape that offers the viewer many question and interpretations is floating shape above the horizon is like a city in the sky. His artist statement about the piece supports a spiritual invitation to enter a world unknown.

Leslie Teegarden uses dynamic color tension to express her First Place composition, “The Puzzle”. The colors vibrate and even float above the background as one observes the piece. It is an up dated version of a ‘color field painting’ that uses color compliments to make the composition move in space. The title is perfect for this painting.

The Second Place painting, “Imagination”, by Gary Johnson is composed of layers of watercolor washes. The artist uses a limited pallet of color to create a vibrant moving abstraction that pulls the viewer into the center of the composition and what happens there is up to the imagination of the viewer.

Gerald Chodak uses cool clean colors to abstractly render nature. His Third Place offering has the refreshing feeling of a world washed clean “After the Rain.” He has successfully reduced the scene to its essential essence, simple geometric shapes with soften edges that represent the moment when the clouds part and leave behind a rainbow.

“CONSTRUCT (radio)”, Fourth Place, ink rendering by Stephen J Daly gives the viewer a minimal amount of lines and information to explore. The title is the key for the viewer to interprets invisible sound waves inherent in radio waves. ‘Less is more’ is the artist’s strategy for this abstraction.

Honorable Mention

The pieces selected for Honorable Mention express abstraction in fresh ways: brilliant color, unexpected materials, unusual viewpoint and a variety of line elements.

Cyndy Baran and Richard Greene used color as the foundation element but with different themes. Baran ‘s piece is a social statement while Greene experimented with layers and patterns. Brandie Furguson adapted a fish eye view of winter to create a circular composition that surrounds the viewer in the cold of winter. Marcia Berg Haskell used organic line to build her work while David Terrar & Carmile Zaino used geometric line to convey their messages. Terrar also introduced gold leaf to lift his subject to an iconic image reminiscent of religious icons of the past. Maiya Lonesome combined geometric line with swashes of color while Diane James successfully presents anatomy in a very abstract fashion by using organic shapes and fleshy colors.

Congratulations to all exhibiting artist – Caryl Morgan



Best Of Show

Q. Wang

"New York "

Acrylic on Canvas , 30" x 40"

Sale Price $NFS

About the Painting

 

If you look at the black bar, it will lead you into an unknown world.

 

Biography

 

Born and grew up in China.
1995, came into America, work as a computer Engineer/Programmer.
2006, went to West Los Angeles College to learn Oil Painting.
2011, published a collection of his paintings – “Spirit”.
2014, Show his artworks in Las Vegas.
2018, ArtSlant showcase winner.
2018, Show on New York ArtExpo.
2018, Light Space Time, Special Recognition winner.

 

Q. Wang developed his painting style — “Freeism” by using free colors, free
shapes, free strokes, and free perspective to do his art works. The result is a
free atmosphere, and a space of imagination.

 

Q. Wang paints the spirits by heart. Before Van Gogh, peoples all paint what
they saw, and let the viewers to see what they painted. Since Van Gogh,
peoples began to paint what they thought, and let the viewers to think what
they painted. But Q. Wang paints the spirits, something you can not see and
you can not think, you can only feel it by heart. His paintings have no
details, but have characters. Each of his painting is different with others.

 

As the famous French film producer Jean-Luc Godard said, It’s not where
you take things from – it’s where you take them to.

 

Wang has taken me further into the appreciation of my surroundings, people, and love. That
is what art is all about. —  Gary Sorkin



First Place

Leslie Teegarden

"Puzzle"

Pastel, Acrylic, Enamel , 17" x 13"

Sale Price $POR

Artist Statement

Howdothingscometogether – when they often start apart?

Over a lifetime, our brains monitor and absorb upwards of 997 Terabytes of information. How we process and piece together the cumulative stimuli informs our thinking, behaviors, perceptions, emotions and decisions. And as those pieces fall into place, our life’s bigger picture begins to reveal itself.

What do the rectangular shapes represent in this abstract mind?Compartmentalization? Our mind’s absolutes? The proverbial rhyme and reason? And what about the rest of the painting? Is it the curious mind, hungry for more knowledge? The creative, right cerebral hemisphere? Or is it the critical missing piece that completes the overall puzzle?

I leave that to your interpretation.

 

Biography

 

As a very little girl who loved to create, Leslie’s first ‘work of art’ was simple: her medium was colorful yarn on white plaster walls.

Her discovery that the yarn’s fibers stuck to the heavily texturized walls led to murals/graffiti all over the house. To this day, she still

seeks opportunities to be creative with her surroundings and her art. Leslie’s professional background is in advertising/PR and marketing. She currently lives

in Colorado and enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding and travel.



Second Place

Gary Johnson

"Imagination"

Watercolor , 22" x 21"

Sale Price $1750

Artist Statement – “Imagination”

The “Dynamics of Dominance and Value” in the abstract art Imagination that I created are but two of the design elements and principles that have become the central theme in the work I produce, exhibit and teach. Dominance is exhibited in many ways: color, shape, texture, and line are all forms of dominance utilized in this work. The predominantly warm colors are balanced with a small grouping of subordinated cooler colors.

The dominance of multiple curvilinear shapes are offset nicely by smaller geometric shapes. These are the two key forms of dominance that I try to produce when working on a watercolor abstract. Other elements that tend to support these characteristics of my work are textures which are derived in multiple ways as well as the use of line to help pull the piece together and the multiple washes that allow the transparency of watercolor to come shining through providing changes in value throughout the composition.

 

Biography

Gary Johnson, Fayetteville, AR is primarily a watercolor artist but thoroughly enjoys the results that acrylic mediums allow. Gary has lived and worked in many different areas of the US and became interested in art as he grew closer to retirement. He’s a self-taught artist, although he has taken numerous work shops around the country and has studied numerous texts and journals on the subject to enhance his skill level. He’s a Signature Artist in Excellence in the South Carolina Watermedia Society and is a member of many regional and national watermedia organizations around the country. He was recently ju-
ried into the Watercolor USA Exhibition, the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Ex-hibition, and the Signature American Watermedia International Exhibition.



Third Place

Gerald Chodak

"After the Rain"

Acrylic on Canvas , 48" x 48"

Sale Price $2800

About This Painting

 

“After the Rain” is a 48″ x 48″ Acrylic on Canvas Painting influenced by a rainbow I saw after a heavy rain in Florida.

 

Biography

 

My introduction to the visual arts came about in the latter part of my first career as a surgeon when I was exposed to the world of glass blowing.  I personally found surgery to be an artistic expression but with obvious limitations.  Blowing glass offered an opportunity to do “surgery” on the glass to create interesting shapes with the added excitement achieved with a varied color palette.   After 13 years of working with glass and showing my work in five galleries, however, I found the need to explore painting.  I began with classes at the Boca Raton Museum School of Art in Boca Raton, Florida and the Old School Square in Delray Beach, Fl.   Whereas blowing glass required pre-work planning and had a time constraint, painting has allowed me more spontaneity and freedom with time to react to each painting as it develops.   I can work on a piece, put it aside and return to it at any time until I feel it is complete.    If something doesn’t feel quite right, I can change or modify it until I am satisfied.  Another freedom with painting is the ability to combine any colors of my choosing.  With glass, physical attributes of some colors prevent them from being combined together.  I find my direction with both mediums has been greatly influenced by the abstract colorist painters of the early and mid 20thcentury.   Color evokes a special reaction in me.  I don’t simply see it but rather I react to it emotionally, whether it is the changing colors in the ocean or sky, the flowers in my garden or the birds flying by. My goal is to evoke a similar reaction for myself as I watch the colors of the paints merge together and explode off the canvas, creating combinations that are often unexpected. Constant excitement influences my art as I prefer to display organic, non-objective shapes, which encourages the viewer to find their own message.



Fourth Place

Stephen J Daly

"CONSTRUCT (radio)"

ink on paper , 20 " x 27 1/2"

Sale Price $1800

 

Creative Statement

CONSTRUCT (radio) is one of several drawings I group as SIGNALS which reference abstract and symbolic images used in communication such as STEM or musical notations. I have also long enjoyed calligraphy. Letter forms do not have to be understood to have a point of view either compositionally or in terms of content.

I used black and white in this piece to add a mechanical feel which may look like electrical or wi-fi waves shooting across space. Loud and soft lines make tones.

As these waves are invisible in real life the presence here reminded me of a radio signal…thus the (radio) in the title.

Biography

The formative years for me artistically were those spent in undergraduate and graduate studies at San Jose State University and Cranbrook Academy of Art, respectively. San Jose State University had a very active art department and was close enough to the San Francisco Bay Area to allow plenty of museum, gallery, and studio visits. My struggle during this period was to find a medium I liked and determine what my artistic voice was to be. In San Jose, and again at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, I explored the mysteries of metal casting and found a formal and visual language in a machine/man, machine/animal synthesis much expanded and grounded a few years later during a two-year grant period (on the Prix de Rome) at the American Academy in Rome where I could work, look and think, all the time.

My first teaching position at the University of Minnesota was followed by almost a decade at Humboldt State Univ. in Northern California (less the 2 years in Rome) central Texas. The move to Texas, to fill a position in sculpture at the University, saw the introduction of a distinctly figurative element in my sculpture and the beginning of drawing as an art form (as opposed to sketches for sculpture). The concepts of “situational” work and of “particulated” imagery (many independent forms working as a whole) continue today. Ideas swirl around how we communicate with each other and with the natural world.

 



Honorable Mention

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